


Dripping Despair

by AlexNow



Category: Cobra Starship, Hush Sound, My Chemical Romance
Genre: Halloween, Haunted Houses, Horror, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 02:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/844398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlexNow/pseuds/AlexNow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <span class="small">It's not raining. It <i>shouldn't</i> be raining. But yet Frank shouldn't be here either.</span>
  <br/>
  <span class="small">It's not as if he has much of a choice on that matter either. The breeze caresses his long black hair and he carelessly blows it away, glaring at the house in front of him challengingly.</span>
  <br/>
  <span class="small">Fuck it if Ray thinks a simple house is going to scare him shitless. If there's one thing about the Manterville Mansion that's going to have him screaming, it's the spiders.</span>
  <br/>
  <span class="small">Ghosts though? Utter bullshit.</span>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dripping Despair

**Author's Note:**

> The characters in this one-shot are all members of My Chemical Romance, The Hush Sound, and Cobra Starship. Therefore, I do not own them because they are not made of a fringe of my imagination. Message at the very end not written by me, but taken from the classical, Frankenstein.

**~.~.~**

_October 7, 2008_

It’s not raining.

It _shouldn’t_ be raining. But yet Frank shouldn’t be here either. It’s not as if he has much of a choice on that matter either.

The breeze caresses his long black hair and he hastily blows it away from his eyes, glaring at the house in front of him challengingly with what he hopes is a threatening glare.

Fuck it if Ray thinks a simple house is going to scare him shitless. If there’s one thing about the Manterville Mansion that’s going to have him screaming, it’s the spiders.

Just imagining it’s furry legs, various eyes and sharp teeth have him shivering with goosebumps and it’s not a reaction inflicted by the cold wind that have the leaves on the tall trees bristling in the dark corners.

Frank should be scared, but he’s not.

No, he isn’t. There’s absolutely nothing terrifying about the way the gray clouds in the sky are floating _right_ above the house, darkening it even more. Nothing petrifying about how it looks as if it’s about the collapse of age. Nothing unsettling about the dark windows covering any view from inside the house.

Nothing weird about how Frank’s just _waiting_ for a blue light to reflect from inside the house and a ghost with no legs to float on top of it like the cover for _Pierce The Veil_ ’s new album, house wrecked under.

Frank allows a small smirk to form on his thin lips and he digs his hands deeper into his ratty jacket’s pockets. His sneakers dig into the dirt below his feet, creating a scuffing noise to penetrate the dead silence.

He then snorts and laughs while approaching it. Survive the night sleeping in the house without anything to carry but a lighter, his cellphone and a pack of cigarettes for fifty bucks solid? Piece of fucking cake. Ray’s an idiot, but Frank’s damned if he’s ever telling him that. He wants his money.

Humming to himself to the tune of the latest Misfits song, he literally skips to the porch steps of the Mansion (which are bound to break, even with Frank being a short little fucker who‘s as light as a feather) because he’s manly that way. It’s just little Frankie being immature and conceited at the same time, nothing terribly new.

Just as Frank raises his hand to knock on the door, he stops himself and rolls his eyes. He’s just _too_ much of a gentleman sometimes (he can practically hear Bob laughing in his head) that he forgets. It’s stupid to expect someone to open the door for him. Trespassing just seems _wrong_ though, but he does it anyway.

He throws the door open and cringes at the loud creaking it makes, stabbing his ear. When he steps inside he hears steps running on the rough grass outside and he quickly twirls around, but the door slams in his face before he witnesses anything.

Frank blinks at the sudden darkness and stays still before finally taking out his lighter and using his thumb a couple of times to turn it on. It takes a few tries but soon enough, it flicks a small spark of fire before turning into a flame.

He stares before him, taking in his surrounding and the place he’s supposed to be sleeping at for the night. The wooden old house is fine enough from the inside. Sort of gives him the creeps from the inside with all these dusted portraits of people who seem to be from the 40s or something. Their impassive faces reflect in the flame’s glimmering night, moving with the movement.

There’s filth everywhere, that’s for sure. You can barely even see the color of the furnace. Finally setting his eyes on some candles, Frank sighs in relief. Being scared of darkness has nothing to do with the fact he’s _in_ the Manterville Mansion, the most feared house all around the coast. He’s just traumatized with darkness every since his older cousin forced him to go see the premiere of _Jack Frost_ with him when he was only five.

After he lights up the three candles, he sighs in relief as he notices no freaky skeleton has appeared on his face. Not that he is scared that will happen. Fuck no. Frank’s not a motherfucking baby. He can take care of himself totally well. It’s October, yes. The month of the Devil.

But what’s to be scared of? Frank was _born_ on this month. On the _day_ of the Devil. He can handle this.

He totally can.

When Frank looks up the stairs to the top part of the house that the candle’s flame couldn’t enlighten, making it seem like an endless black abyss of oblivion, Frank bites his bottom lip. Okay, okay. Only a little dark. No big fucking deal.

He’s fifteen. Almost sixteen on Halloween. Practically the Prince of Darkness.

Okay, now he’s just stalling. As he leaves one candle downstairs, he takes the other two on his hands. Once he takes the first step up the stairs, he leaves one of the candles on the fifth step, cringes at the loud creak it makes. He continues his way up with the last candle.

After counting twenty seven stairs up to distract himself, he stares in front of himself and finds a long hallway. About fifteen doorways on either side of himself. He contemplates on choosing a random door to sleep in as he stares at the old wood of each entrance, splinters threatening to cut through his skin.

He decides on trying a different technique, checking out each bedroom and hoping not to find any evidence of a homicide. Or to find that’s he’s currently walking on an old graveyard, millions of bodies below his feet. No need for another movie based on _Poltergeist._ He’s had enough of any horror movies implying he’s not safe to live in any new house that has more than twenty years of its existence.

Opening the first door to the left, Frank is greeted with a thousand and one pairs of eyes. He doesn’t know if he’s disappointed to see that they’d not human, but just a bunch of Penny Brite dolls around the pink faded room, color barely noticeable. At one point Frank even sees _Robert the Doll_ in one corner.

Frank purses his lips and tries not to feel disenchanted. In all truth, he was kind of hoping an unsolved mystery here with a skeleton hidden under the dolls or something of that sort. Something actually _fun_ about staying here for the night. But so far no zombies or shadow people have appeared.

He carefully grabs hold of the rusty doorknob and turns it as he moves to close the door but stops halfway because he fucking _swears_ most the dolls were facing another way.

Currently their heads are all towards him, waiting and staring with their flawless eyes, perfectly styled artificial hair in braids and ponytails, or hanging by their shoulders. They seem to be challenging him, even with just a bunch of plastic smiles. Frank blinks and closes the door completely, doesn’t let go when the door’s closed.

He stays still for a while, wondering, before settling on cracking it open once again and peeks an eye through it, looks around. He barely manages to turn his attention towards his left before he sees a ball of blonde hair coming his way and slams the door, hears the plastic crash against the wood.

Frank’s breathing heavily, he knows it. But he doesn’t think _anyone_ would be calm after being attacked by a flying vintage Barbie Doll plastic figure. Yes, it _attacked_ him. Or tried to, anyway. He didn’t see anyone inside the room before. Maybe it’s Ray trying to make him chicken out…?

He hopes not. The haunting is barely starting.

Frank squeezes his eyes shut as tight as he could before popping them open, trying to be prepared to be assaulted by daylight seeping through his curtains and the yell of his mother telling him to get the fuck up to eat his waffles, but as he takes in his surroundings (dark room full of dust and ragged cloths) he is reminded that this morning he isn’t going to eat waffle-y goodness just yet.

After the strange incident of the flying doll Frank had taken it as a sign he needs sleep, so two doorways later he found a quite decent looking room. He had spent a couple more minutes awake after, though. Looking under the bed for terrifying spiders, hoping even they wouldn’t survive in a place like this.

Frank blinks a couple of times, eyes adjusting to seeing in the dark and dilated. He rubs his eyes with his fists and groans as he gets up from the stiff bed. He bets he would have been for comfortable on the motherfucking floor. But getting eaten by cockroaches was not an option.

He slips his shoes on, and is too lazy to tie his laces to he just stuffs them under his socks. When he looks up, he is met with expecting brown eyes, barely noticeable in the dark. By instinct he stands straight and jumps one step back, making the back of his knees hit the border of the bed. He falls flat back on the bed. As he sits, he doesn’t make a move to stand up. The blonde figure’s eyebrow raises in question. As if _Frank_ was the one who appeared out of nowhere.

“What the fuck.” Frank breathes in a rush of air. The blonde figure’s lips turn to a deeper frown and a terrified squeak is heard. It’s until that moment that Frank notices a taller form hiding behind the one that seems displeased.

“Who the hell are you?” Frank snaps, stands up again, because he didn’t hear any other noise than himself last night before he went to sleep.

The blonde covering the taller boy (whose eyes peek from over the blonde‘s shoulder) doesn’t respond, just stares at him. He seems to be anticipating his options. And Frank’s growing more and more impatient. He just needs to leave, goddamnit. All he has to do is to exit the door he first came through and then he’d win fifty bucks along with a plate full of waffles drowning in a sea of honey.

“Answer.” Frank hisses out, through a clenched jaw.

Surprisingly, the taller one with the black hair is the one who responds. He no longer seems too scared but as he talks, his voice is almost as small as a whisper and the open window nearly carries away his voice with the bypassing wind.

“We‘re the Ways.” He says. Frank purses his lips.

“What? You two have the same name?” He snarls, eyes shifting from one to the other. The blonde still seems solemn, as if he doesn’t care that Frank’s doing his best to seem threatening. The black haired one, though, stares at him with wide eyes.

“We‘re brothers. We both have our own first names.” The blonde says, eyes waiting.

“Well? Are you going to tell me what the fuck they _are?_ ”

The blonde with the ridiculous circular glasses snorts in response, seems to laugh at Frank’s attempt to be hostile. Frank immediately hates him. The black-haired one whispers something in his brother’s eyes and the blonde’s eyes harden. Even though the blonde seems younger (about Frank’s own age) than the black haired boy (who seems no younger than eighteen years old), he seems to have control.

“No, Gerard.” The blonde hisses. Gerard frowns and juts his bottom lip out, still hiding behind the other’s back.

“No one else has come here in a long time.” He whispers.

“Gerard.” The blonde says again in warning.

 _“A long, long time, Michael.”_ Gerard continues, and Frank sort of just stands there to witnesses the exchange between the brothers in silence.

“We can‘t _keep_ him, Gee. Understand that.” Michael snaps, and finally turns around to face Gerard to glare at him.

“ _What?!_ ” Frank yells, losing his composure and awarded by getting both their attention, “ _Keep_ me? I‘m _not_ a motherfucking puppy!”

“You don‘t understand,” Gerard murmurs, and his green eyes glimmer with what Frank can’t distinguish between hope and malice.

“What is there to understand? I‘m not property!” Frank screams, and is seriously losing his serenity.

Gerard blinks with wide eyes and stares at him, his nose pointing upwards in an unnatural way that seems to saw he was born with such quality, but not quite covering the corner of his own eyes.

“You need to listen,” Michael says with authority obvious in his tone of voice, “There are rules there are to follow. The most important one is one you can’t possibly break. You came in. You can‘t go back out into the real world ever again. And you’ll have to learn to accept that.”

Frank stays silent, because they _totally_ took that out of a cheap horror movie of the 80s. Michael seems serious, but Frank can’t find any significance in his words. He takes a step closer, eyes hard, and presses his forehead against Michael’s.

“Who‘s going to stop me?”

A wry smile forms on Michael’s lips.

“Someone help me out!” Frank screams once for, his voice breaking half way for being hoarse and using his voice too much. He’s been begging for help from anyone outside who could hear him for about two hours. No one has come.

At one point he felt his claustrophobia backfire on him, making him even more desperate. He had grabbed hold of an old coffee table and began attacking the glass window. The table snapped into two parts and Frank gaped at the remaining pieces of the wood.

“The house is cursed,” Michael had muttered uninterestedly as he watched how Frank had a panic attack, “It cannot be broken, unless it‘s from the outside.”

Frank’s eyes widened and he seems to lose it even more, his heart beating against his ribs in his chest. Then a macabre grin spread across his lips. “My cell phone! I could call Ray or Bob and they‘ll help me out!”

Michael almost smiles, just a twitch of the tip of his lips. “Gerard has already taken care of that.” He says.

Frank’s felt himself on a verge of tears when he saw his phone on the floor, broken into a million pieces, a pickaxe settled beside it.

 

 

Frank’s stomach growls and his grits his teeth while trying to ignore the feeling of his own organs eating each other. Michael, seeming to hear the noise, slowly turns his head and connects eyes. His light brown eyes are cold and his everlasting frown is still in place.

“I‘m hungry.” Frank says through a clenched jaw, barely managing the word out, as if Michael couldn’t have heard the vile noise of his stomach protesting at the absence of victuals.

“You need food,” Michael states, as if he thought _Frank didn’t fucking know,_ “Gerard, take Frank to get food.”

Gerard quietly stands up from his position in the room’s corner and carefully lays his old ragged book on the rocking chair, the misbalance of weight making the wood creak and it slightly rock back and forth.

“Follow me.” He says softly and never looks at Frank in the eye, instead finding the floor much more interesting. His old shoes silently pad on the polished wood under then, and Frank shoots Michael a look from over his shoulder. Michael doesn’t even seem to notice.

When they reach a small room, Frank finds himself in a place that resembles a very old kitchen. Bread paddles and all. It’s all covered in thick layers of spider webs. Frank holds back a shiver and silently gags at the sickening sight. He isn’t even sure how Gerard moves with such facility. Frank’s the short one here and yet Gerard gracefully avoids it all.

“How can you _live_ here?” Frank asks exasperatedly, “I get that you‘re stuck here for a while as much as me,” Frank doesn’t add the part where he says he’s getting out soon, that he’s going to find a way to leave because sooner or later Bob and Ray have to come looking for him, “But could you at least fucking _clean?!_ Is anything even edible around here? Fuck, is that a _rat_ skeleton?!”

“I apologize,” Gerard replies, almost robotic considering his eyes are staring far away, not focusing on Frank or _anything_ really, “But we‘ve haven’t stepped in here for many years. We did not realize how much time has passed.”

Frank blinks. “What? _‘How much time has passed’_? What the fuck does _that_ mean? What do you eat then?”

“We,” Gerard pauses to emphasize on that simple word, as if the plain remark is significant and implies something else Frank can’t possibly value, “Haven‘t been in need of food ever since. We don‘t need food to survive anymore.”

“I don‘t-” Frank starts but his eyes catches a portrait on the wall and his mouth falls shut as Gerard patiently stays still. It’s a black and white picture of a family of four. In it there are a man and a woman, in their mid thirties, and one of both of them a little plump. To their sides there are two children. The oldest one seeming to be sixteen at most and the youngest about fourteen. Frank recognizes the faces immediately.

“Hey, dude. This your ancestors‘ house? I swear to motherfucking god you look just like them,” Frank turns to Gerard and at the serious look he is shooting him, Frank’s expression falls.

So, technically Frank had been taking it all well.

Being stuff in a house without food or communication with the outside world at all, only with the Way brothers. It’s dark in here and there’s seems to be spiders _everywhere,_ for which Frank is not happy at all. Frank’s even thought for a moment or two that this is pretty damn awesome, finally being able to live one of those horror movies he’s seen millions of times. He no longer had to wish that at night a ghost would push him out of bed and tell him his body is under the wooden platforms or something.

But this is just too much. Even for him. Frank chokes on his own spit and steps back, hands flailing uselessly around him, looking for something to protect himself with. Gerard just stares at him, seeming to be amused by Frank’s antics. His lips curl and he no longer seems shy and extremely scared of Frank. His gaze is awaiting, looking to see what the other’s next move is.

“Holy shit. _Holy mother of god._ I- I-” Frank keeps trying to let any coherent words out but he just _can’t._ He opens his mouth and closes it one and another time but his mind still can’t think straight.

“Were you the one that attacked me with the flying doll?” Frank finally inquires, and maybe it’s not the best question to question at the moment but it’s the only thing that comes out of his lips appropriately. Gerard’s eyebrows raise and he looks slightly surprised.

“Flying dolls? I don‘t remember any flying dolls.” Gerard responds, his head cocking to one side and seeming like anything than what he really is. The thought is pulled to a halt when his lips curve into a barely noticeable smile, “It must have been the sisters.”

Frank blinks and slowly takes another step back, never taking his eyes off Gerard’s pale face. “The sisters?” He asks.

Gerard gives a curt nod. “Yes. Victoria and Greta. They get terribly angry when you interrupt them from their tea party they have daily. You’ll meet them soon enough.”

Frank remembers when he arrived turning one moment towards one direction and then turning back to see all the dolls facing directly towards him. He tightens his lips because he doesn’t find it reassuring knowing that he’s constantly being watched.

_“One, Two, you must not snooze. Three, Four, shut the door. Five, Six, don’t not to fall for the evil tricks. Seven, Eight, remember you are bait. Nine, Ten, you‘ll never make it out again.”_

The voices are out of tune and it does not go with the beat the way it should, but with the child-like voices ringing through the dark and lonely hall, Frank tries his best to mask his unease.

“Why are they barely letting themselves be known?” Frank whispers, as if afraid he’s going to disturb the sisters again and going to be attacked by a small plastic body once more.

“Because they are aware you finally know they exist.” Michael responds curtly.

Frank stays silent for a while, “Gerard told them?”

Michael coils his lips to expose his first genuine smile ever since Frank first got here, two nights ago. His smirk is not completely normal, it’s not nice and not kind. It’s more mocking, lips covering the top of his white teeth and his bottom teeth barely seen.

“They are in no need for us to tell them,” He replies, “They are always listening.”

Giggles echo against the vacant walls.

“Shhhh,” Someone hushes, a girl, “You‘ll wake him up.”

An older voice replies, “He won‘t stay asleep forever either way.”

A sigh seems to be _right_ beside Frank’s ear and he tenses but he doesn’t move or open his eyes.

“We can make him be.”

“Greta, Mikey and Gee will get mad!” The older voice protests, voice raising and seeming annoyed.

Frank takes it as his cue to make his awakening known. He sits up and rubs his eyes with his fists, then pops his eyes open and isn’t very surprised to see two young girls staring at him. The one with bright red hair seems to be about eight and the other with blonde curls only six years old.

“See what you did?” The blonde one snaps, and Frank recognizes the voice as the one that is Greta’s, meaning the other girl is Victoria.

The fact that they are in the room where he sleeps in does not really shock him, not even the fact that he’s seen them for the first time. What grabs his attention is the shiny silver item Greta has in hand. The blade barely is able to shine in the dark.

“What the fuck!” Frank scrambles to his feet and jumps on the bed to the far end.

The girls blink and then turn to each other at the exact same time before turning back to Frank. Frank’s eyes are still widened.

“What the heck are you doing here?!” Frank yells, “What were you going to do with that knife?!”

“We wanted to play.” Greta replies calmly.

“Well, then, we will. But give that to me.” Frank says holds his hand out, “Give me the knife and then we‘ll play,”

Greta immediately holds the knife to her chest protectively, “No! It‘s my toy!” She yells.

Victoria is still staring at Frank impassively, “You can‘t take it away from her. It was used against her and now Greta wants to use it against others.”

Frank ignores her and reaches towards Greta’s hand, where her fingers are wrapped around the handle. His hand tugs towards himself and tries to make her cold fingers let go of the steel, and Greta lets out a petrifying shriek as she fights back. And for a small six year old Frank notices she’s really fucking strong.

“Greta, just-”

“Leave me alone!” She yells back.

The Frank hears it. A knock. But not a knock on his bedroom door, like Mikey would normally tap three consecutive times, but a knock on the front door. From the window Frank vaguely sees Ray’s curls blaze and contrast against the green of the trees. Frank could also see Bob’s lip ring flash in the light and reflect on his blonde hair.

_“Hey! Dude! Frankie, you in there? I heard a girl scream and I figured it was you.”_

They’re here.

Though when he’s too distracted grinning at the sight of his best friends, Greta takes advantage. Her hand twists and the tip presses into his palm, making Frank hiss in pain and yank his hand back. A few drops of blood spill on the wood.

It isn’t enough for her, though. She then digs half the blade into his thigh and Frank screams, falls on the ground to his knees and then back as he clutches his wound. Greta calmly walks over to face him, her small figure towering over him now that he’s lying down on the floor. She smiles, bitterly and impossibly impious for being just a small child.

“I don‘t like it when people go near my toys.”

Frank lazily glances at Victoria, who watching peacefully. Then Frank feels a pain in his chest and he chokes, and judging by the red he coughs out, it’s not only saliva. The place where his heart should be is soaking his clothes with blood and he groans at the pain. He closes his eyes and continues spluttering out puddles of red, followed by a couple of dark red chunks Frank figures are his guts.

Even in this situation, he laughs. It’s short and it hurts like a motherfucker but he can’t help at the irony.

When Ray and Bob are about to leave, Bob barely manages to glance up, far into the window of a dark room. A figure is looming up and for a moment he thinks it’s Frank. Bob grins and waves him over, calls him a son of a bitch affectionately and says something about surviving the monster spiders.

Then another figure appears next to it and Bob’s smile fades into nothing. Ray is honking on his car, telling him to get in so they could look for Frank somewhere else. Bob pays no attention and keeps on staring.

One of the small figure’s hand points down and then Bob slowly walks towards the right window of the abandoned house. He peeks in and sees Frank’s lighter with his cigarettes on a small pile of books.

Next to it there’s a small message written in red ink, written carefully making sure to not smear or dry if it sinks too far into the leather. Bob tilts his head to get a better view and his eyes trail on each letter. He mouths the words slowly and swears he feels the gaze of someone staring at him, being someone other than Ray.

**_~I am chained in an eternal hell._ **

Bob freezes and he doesn’t look up from the note as he sees a shadow loom over the old piece of paper. He isn’t interested in knowing who it is if it isn’t his friend.

Somewhere behind him he hears Ray still yelling at him from the car about thinking Frank is at Dewee’s already, smoking from the other’s stash or something of that sort. Bob isn’t listening anymore and he doesn’t care. He’s still inching towards the inside of the closed window and he smells dust on it. Frank’s smoker lungs wouldn’t take a chance against this. Not normally.

As Bob starts breathing heavily and begins clutching at the wood for his friend, he thinks he hears a chuckle. _“See, Mikey? I told you we could keep him forever.”_


End file.
